REVENANT
by The DayDreaming
Summary: "So I will destroy the gods." Everything changed when Ivan began his new life in an unfamiliar city. When the Fae strike and a contract is formed with the apparitional anomaly Alfred, he finds himself with the power to change the world, and maybe save it.
1. stranger

**Title**: REVENANT

**Author**: The DayDreaming

**A/N**: This was a story written for the Fantasia event over on LJ's Russiamerica comm. Now that it's finished, I figure I'll start posting chapters here.

**Warnings**: Slight OOC-ness at first, AU, fantasy, violence, gore, language. All that good stuff, y'know?

**Summary**: "So I will destroy the gods." Everything changed when Ivan began his new life alone in an unfamiliar city. When the Fae strike and a contract is formed with the apparitional anomaly Alfred, he finds himself with the power to change the world and, just possibly, the chance to save it.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

**Extended Summary**: _"So I will destroy the gods."_ There's something to be said about breaching the barrier between dreams and reality; something which Ivan seems to have done unwittingly once he steps foot into a new Sanctuary after being evacuated from his old one. Discovering the ability to wield magic within himself, he finds his world expanding beyond his wildest imagination as he joins the Sanctuary's resistance division to fight the evil Fae, is forced into a binding contract with the apparitional Alfred, and battles to maintain his identity as a human being.

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

_I never imagined I would die._

_I thought I could live forever, alone and unchained, free to take what I want, when I wanted it, and no one could stop me. Every day I would wake up to find the world once again open to me, the sun bright, with smiles that flowed as easily as water, and a chest without a heart because only children are heartless enough to be innocent._

_I have dreams now, you know. I never used to have them, because my head was always so empty; but you came along and filled it up, and oh hey I guess there was a brain in there after all because somehow dreaming comes to me like breathing air and flying and all those other things everyone is too old to know. They blend together like secret things, with wings and tongues and fingers long and agile, and I hold hands with someone and I think—_

_Maybe…maybe it's you._

_But I'm scared._

_I don't want to die._

_But you—you were the first one that ever—that I ever—_

…_I guess now…isn't the time to say things that you'll never know. _

_You made me remember things, too. How to walk, and talk, and smile without meaning it, because sometimes, things are too heavy to bear, but we have to do it anyways. _

_So I'm going to smile now._

_Because more than anything, I can't live in a world without you._

_I want you to live, and know that I wouldn't just do this for anyone._

_You are the only one I would ever die for._

_So live, and don't forget me._

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

**First END: stranger**

**-o—o-**

"It's temporary," they tell him, when the car rolls up to the curb, tires sinking through grimy slush and brushing just a bit too close to the concrete to not scuff the rubber. Ivan disembarks from the car with a little difficulty, head much too tall and body much too wide to fit into such a compact space comfortably.

They tell him that his vehicle will be shipped over in the coming weeks, because while he could attempt to take public transportation every day to his school over on the other side of the city, he wants to be stubborn, even if it means having them bring back his old clunker with the rusty trunk, cheap carpet, and a persistent squeak that might be considered either a charm-point or an internal ticking time bomb waiting to explode on a day when he turns a corner a little too sharply.

But he persists with it, because any little bit of familiarity is worth the hassle of others, the effort and time of this 'greater good' that had so thanklessly shut down his running household and shipped him off to a foreign land without so much as a thought as to whether or not he really wanted to leave at all.

Even if it would have meant death for him, to be all alone.

It's a major event when a Sanctuary closes down. Suddenly there are a million people needing to be distributed across the globe into new homes, those new homes actually needing to be built, jobs found, lives situated, new cultures learned and niches needing to be found. It was of Ivan's opinion that they needn't have bothered with it; even if his city was freezing over, the people dying from a magic-borne plague, the creatures outside lurking closer and closer to the borders of the gateway, supplies running low, and the wardstones growing weaker with each successive monster attack, he thinks that they could have managed.

Well, maybe he was being optimistic, but still, he's a bit resentful that the home his family had owned for over two hundred years was suddenly stripped from him, and his sisters, independent bodies from himself, sent to separate Sanctuaries in the mad hustle to get everyone to evacuate before the plague reached the east side of the city.

He could have stayed, of course; hidden himself away from the authorities until everyone had left. But that meant being alone, without his sisters. And really, what good was a house that had been in the family for hundreds of years when the only one left in it had no family to share it with? His older sister, Katyusha, had used this argument on him, though he supposes that what had really convinced him was her grabbing onto his scarf and bawling her eyes out afterwards.

The house he is given is white and marbled with green mold creeping along the walls. They tell him that workers will be along within the next couple of days to fix up the place, because there really hadn't been any time to do anything but assign him a place to live before moving on to the next poor and pitiful citizen of the Far North Sanctuary. It's a two-story affair, vaguely neo-Victorian in style with imposing metal curlicue accents on the balcony and windows dotting here and there, some clear-glassed and others with artsy, stained motifs. Run-down as the house is, it could be beautiful with a bit of time and effort. He's demanded this type of place to live, so he expects nothing less. He remembers trading classical paintings and old, doddery things he could bear to part with in order to get enough coupons to sequester a large, spacey home.

Enough space to live, with room for others; for his sisters and their future husbands, and their children when they had them, so that they could all be together, and never, ever alone. All he has to do is wait for them to acquire permits to move here, and then everything will fall into place.

He pulls his bag from the trunk of the tiny car, giving a grunt as the stocky luggage frees itself from the cramped confines. He's had to live in wait-stations for weeks while waiting for his turn to get transferred along the series of portals connecting the gates together that lead to each Sanctuary. It isn't safe to just walk through a singular portal into the main domain of the city. Complicated travel routes had been formed and cemented into place, with the last jump-points being heavily hidden and protected from all outsiders and insiders alike. The portals could be hacked, and any portal into a city was a portal to all humans, defenseless and weak, easy prey for the carnivorous fae that thirsted for the addictive human flesh, or those creatures interested in siphoning the vast quantities of 'spirits' produced by human souls living so closely together. (The term 'spirits' was spiteful wordplay to describe what could practically be considered metaphysical alcohol for the magically inclined; and like any alcohol, it too was addictive, and lead to a growing hunger which festered in the creatures and produced terrible transformations of the body and soul, and an eventual thirst for human souls in and of themselves.)

He tromps toward the front door of the house, peering cautiously at the stairs leading up the patio for any ice, and then pulling the keycard from the pocket of his heavy coat and swiping it through the outdated slider, its plastic shell cracked and dirty. The door pops open, dislodging a tiny rain of paint chips, and Ivan can't be sure, but he think the slight crack in the frosted glass of the oval window on the door spreads an inch or two.

Inside, the house is dusty, cold, and dark.

They tell him, over time, that he'll get used to living here, in this new city, that it will be just like his old one, only better. They say they'll fix the house up as best they can, when they can. They say this is for the best.

Ivan realizes, as he walks up the creaky stairs and into a face-full of cobweb, that they tell him a lot of things.

He wonders how many are lies.

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

Ivan doesn't do much, the first week he arrives at his new abode. He sleeps, unpacks a box of personal belongings out of the dozen or so that had arrived on his doorstep three hours after he had stepped out of that damnably tiny car, then reads a book. He tries venturing out to the local grocery store a couple times, investing in non-perishables and the like with the sparing care of a man bereft of coin (or credits, really, as physical money had long since been done away with, and bracelet credit cards were all the rage now), though he needn't have worried with the fortune left behind to him and his sisters by his late parents. But Ivan is always careful with how much he spends, so it doesn't really matter; if there was one thing his parents had managed to teach him before they died, it was the value of always being sure to only take what is needed.

His ventures in the kitchen are short, usually just grabbing something quickly from the fridge and standing in front of the sputtering device trying not to feel like a petty burglar in someone else's home. Then he leaves and returns to his own room to sleep. He ventured so little from this routine that his tracks were obvious highways among the dust trails lining the floor.

He thinks to himself a couple times, looking through his bedroom window to the snow-covered streets below, at the people stumbling along like awkward, mechanized dolls, that he could live like this, alone, sulky, and a stranger in his own home and city.

But by the ninth day, bored and a little stir-crazy, he pulls on his heavy coat, wraps his scarf a bit more tightly, slips into his heavy boots, and walks outside for the intentional purpose of wandering about for the first time since he's gotten here. He catches a bus and rides to the other side of town, staring impassively at the people outside, wrapped in super-insulated clothing that looked a lot sleeker than the bulky coat he himself adored wearing, even in summer. It was his father's, and his father's father's, and even more beyond that. Incredibly durable, long-lasting, and most importantly warm, if not a bit faded and slightly ragged at the edges. He didn't want to think about the thinning threads and patched-up holes.

The bus runs past his school, so when the supposed building comes into view and the hulking, gasping beast rolls to a rest, he gets up and shoves past the other sodden, shivering passengers and onto the street. He won't be starting school for another six months, what with them still verifying his records and instating him with citizenship to the city. He supposes that the Sanctuaries could almost be like separate nations, however old and convoluted those notions are nowadays when everything is screwed up and out to get them no matter where or who they are. Moving from one to another is like becoming an entirely new person, even if it didn't matter in this age what specific part of the world your heritage came from. Everything is mixed together, one giant pot of fear and uneasiness, shuffling about as Sanctuaries crumble and new ones are built.

The school is large and sprawling, made of stone white as snow and what would otherwise seem like meaningless sculptures and fountains, if he didn't know that inside these are wardstones, pulsing steadily. If there is ever a place where they do not want the fae entering, it is the school.

Ivan has long since finished high school, but this Sanctuary has different rules from his old one, where he had been trained as a farmer and had managed the lands his parents had put so much sweat and blood into, and who had become wealthy off of their large harvest every year. Working and working and always saving for the future. But now they have no future and it is Ivan, the son, who must see the future for them.

But now he has no land beyond the barren dirt of the house's backyard, muddy and dark with snow. This Sanctuary did not need more farmers, so here he is, attending a combined school with everyone who needs a place to learn. Children and teenagers and adults alike, breathing the same air and wondering what the point is to all this when they might not live to see the next few years if the fae find a way in.

Because they always do, no matter how many wardstones are placed around the city. Quite simply, the wardstones are getting weaker, and with them, the fae are becoming stronger.

Each humdrum pedestrian passing by him now, into the gates of the school, could die any day; no sadness, no anger.

Ivan is beyond the thought of 'it could be me next, I don't want to die I don't want to die please don't kill me,' and inebriated in a state of apathy towards the very idea of death.

Death? Ha ha. Try living; it's much more difficult.

…

He stands in place, watching people come and go for a few hours, looking but not really seeing everything that's around him. He floats up, above and beyond the seething masses, vacant mind spiraling out into the distance. He's looking for something, anything, to fill the emptiness. The void inside him aches and twitches, pulling in and blowing out, a heart in and of itself. He feels nothing nothing nothing oh gods am I dying—

Ivan is swallowed, at least it feels as such; but somehow, the sensation brings him back to himself, and he finds a stranger before him, shrouded in a hooded cloak and leaning close, hands clasped lightly around his cheeks. He is Ivan, still in front of the school, still cold and grounded; not empty and hungry and dying.

"Ah, you came back," the stranger says, hands shifting to rest on Ivan's shoulders, tugging down. Ivan bends, to his surprise, and falls to the other's level, shivering when he finds himself incapable of moving and the stranger's mouth whispering into his ear, "It's not good to allow yourself to wander so far away and not leave your spirit a way back."

Ivan wants to ask 'what' and 'why,' or maybe just shove the stranger away, but the moment he tries, he feels something tighten within, like a rope or bindings; it squeezes him to stillness, with an ease that terrifies Ivan and yet infuriates him.

"You could have died, you know; you left yourself open. Anyone could have reached inside you," the stranger places a cold, ungloved hand to his chest, "and stolen that which is most precious to you." And here, Ivan strains to scream as he feels the fingers dig against the fabric of his coat for a second before falling through, dipping into the cavity of his chest, though it doesn't _feel_ like his chest but someplace _different_.

The stranger practically moans as the fingers slip further further _further_. Ivan trembles on the inside, shuddering and screaming in his mind; it does not hurt, but it is wrong and he wants to kill the man, tear him to pieces and—"It's so good," the man sighs, "So strong and brilliant. I'm almost tempted…" His hand touches something, small and ephemeral, yet Ivan can feel it like his own beating heart. The digits twitch, pull away, but almost immediately return, fisting into the feeling, pulling, "I'm so sorry, sir, but really you won't need it, they'll be coming in soon, and I've foreseen your death, so it won't matter—!"

Ivan can no longer take it, this strange man, digging around inside and touching what isn't his, touching what has always been _Ivan's_, even if he didn't know he _had_ it; something snaps inside, breaking with a twang and rolling out like a bolt of fabric. He wants to kill him, tear him apart, drink him in and crush him with a force beyond human comprehension, and these feelings, these urges, concentrate and hold together, a finished puzzle, rigid, defined lines blurring to create a perfect picture, clarity oh clarity thy name is—!

Ivan blinks his eyes open to find his back pressed into a cold, stone wall. He shoves off, spine aching, turning to find cracked lines spidering out from the zone of impact. He coughs and wipes his nose, a smear of blood seeping into the spongy material of his gloves as he pulls his hand away.

A grunt catches his attention, and his eyes trail to the side, squinting at the sight of the few pedestrians wandering the streets in the twilight hours scrambling and screaming away into the distance. A part of him wonders how it's gotten so late without his noticing, and another notices a long portion of trenched concrete, splintering the sidewalk and falling out into the road. There's a car laying askew on its top, and another whose front end is embedded into a lamppost on the opposite side of the street. And among this wreckage he catches a glimpse of red, before the red pulls itself up from its place wedged into a metal-mesh bench beside the lamppost collision.

Ivan sucks in a breath and staggers to the edge of the sidewalk, mind slipping and hazing into a multitude of tiny pinpricks, not an impending case of unconsciousness so much as points of clarity, overwhelming and intense. They take notice of everything, details and information coagulating in his mind, a fire burning wildly.

Despite this apparent ability to think, he can't find himself with the ability to do anything, actions and words stuttering to a stop, before he catches sight of the stranger from before, cloak torn to shreds around his small frame robed in vibrant, foreign garb; a red jacket and white pants with brown slippers. The other's dark hair flies out behind him in a ponytail, as he dashes with an inhuman speed and grasps Ivan around the throat, sending him slamming into the ground. Just as Ivan is sure the other will attempt to choke him to death, the man pulls back, breathing heavily before standing and offering a hand to his downed victim.

Ivan ignores the hand and raises himself on his own, stepping quickly away from the stranger and his poised hand. Ivan has never felt much fear beyond the attention and ministrations his younger sister, Natalia, has attempted to dote on him, but suddenly the mere idea of this monster touching him, reaching inside him once more, sickens him.

The other smirks briefly and coughs out a laugh before taking back his hand and placing it over his gut. Ivan sees a stain forming where the hand covers the cloth, "Impressive. A bit unrefined, but such raw talent…do you know what you are, Ivan? I suppose not, considering you're still out _here_ and not in _there_…"

"What do you want?" Ivan states, steeling his voice to stamp out the evident exhaustion and startlment, confusion and anger.

"Nothing," the stranger smiles, "But I'd recommend making a run for it. I might have stopped at the warning shot, but other despicable creatures won't catch the hint."

"What do you mean?" Ivan shouts, attempting to catch the stranger at his short, stiff-collared lapels, but grasps only a handful of cold, disappointing snow. He whirls around in rage when he feels a quiet tap on his shoulder, stopping as his adversary tugs his scarf down and pulls (and once again with such strange, unnerving ease!) Ivan's ear close once more.

"Everything is more than it seems. I am more than you can see, and so are you. There is a war taking place, far beyond the imaginations of humans, which will consume us all should we lose. Maybe you'll finally be the one…"

"The one what," Ivan hisses as the stranger releases his scarf. He's ignored, the stranger turning and walking away, past the carnage of an event not remembered. "The one what?"

For the last time, the stranger turns, brown eyes that all at once are average and yet agitatingly peculiar holding his own, "The one to destroy the gods."

And he is gone.

Ivan quivers on the inside; he feels full of worms and other crawly things. He wants to scream, wants to scream, wants to—!

**o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o**

_**To destroy the gods.**_

**I want to laugh, because that's impossible. I'm nothing if not a realist. The peculiar and strange, necessary features for one who is to kill a 'god'…I'm none of these things.**

**And yet…**

**Some part of me is screaming; loudly, agonizingly—**

_**Yes.**_

**But I'm nothing if not a realist.**

**o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o**

He ends up wandering the streets, mind spinning in a thousand different directions. The buzz from earlier is gone, leaving him lightheaded and cold. Who is the mysterious man? What did he do to him? What occurred within the five seconds that he blacked out and found himself against a wall afterward?

Some questions he can answer easily. The man is obviously a clairvoyant sorcerer, or something of that disposition. How else could he have known Ivan's name without being told? Most magic-conjurers are despised, due to their strong correlation with the accursed fae that roam the world and rule it like savages. Conjurers are generally helpful, tirelessly maintaining and working the gates between Sanctuaries, creating medicine for illnesses caused by magic-exposure, helping the fields to grow, drawing resources from the earth for use, and defending those within their immediate vicinity against fae that have breached the Sanctuaries' walls.

They are despised, but they cannot venture out into the wilderness beyond the safety of the man-ruled cities, for fear of the fae overwhelming them. They are spit upon, but they continue to work so as to cling to a life just barely worth living.

Ivan doesn't have much of an opinion on conjurers as a whole, but something inside him grates and snaps each time he thinks of that man's eyes; something like hate, and something he can't explain except as 'hunger,' though it feels like a steady burn.

More importantly, the man tried to steal his soul. That's all Ivan can conclude from the blurry memories and smear of sensations. He had almost gotten it, but something happened, something important that Ivan can't make out clearly. Like a lace coming undone, or a sleeve falling off, his mind supplies, though the nonsensical answers perturb him greatly.

Just as he's turning a corner onto an unfamiliar street (it's all so unfamiliar and a part of him wishes that he had bothered to bring a map, because damn it all that the buses won't run after nightfall), orange sheen blanketing him in a spotlight of off-color sidewalk and snow, the warning sirens sound. They're a deep wail that reverberates through the city's bones like a cold wind. It makes his teeth ache and heart pound, and for a second Ivan thinks about home, and the image that comes to mind isn't the old, spacious farmhouse that's been in his family for over two hundred years but the decrepit, dusty pile of wood in the middle of the street, facing out over a quiet sidewalk.

He's running before he can think about it, not knowing if the break-in is on the east side of the city near his house, or on the west, or in any other direction. All he knows is that he's in the _middle_ and he needs to get _out_.

Every house has a wardstone embedded in it somewhere, and if it doesn't, then the people inside are as good as dead. These wardstones are small enough that they aren't governed by the city. The residents have to keep maintenance over the stone, rejuvenating their power at any place with a warlock specializing in energy-transfer.

As it is, Ivan tries knocking on a couple of the homes he passes, waiting for about five seconds before continuing his run. It's a foolish hope, that someone will open their door. During a raid, no one does. It's death, and he knows it; has abided by it.

He remembers when he was young and hearing banging on their front door, clawing and screaming, and his parents just holding him tightly and trying to cover his ears.

While small wardstones are enough to protect an average abode (most of the time), protecting an entire metropolis is at the pinnacle of difficulty. He's only seen the running wardstones of his old Sanctuary's guardwalls once. They are huge, monolithic stones, glowing white and humming an almost imperceptible song. He'd asked his teacher what the humming was, but she'd denied hearing anything at all. Ivan has since learned that none of his classmates could hear it either; but the wizard, a facilitator of the stone, that had been guiding them around and explaining trivial, uninteresting facts about the structure and quality of the stone, had given him a startled but knowing look. The man then cupped his right ear, the one facing the large wardstone, before shaking his head at Ivan and putting a finger over his lips. Ivan's teacher had assumed that the man had wanted Ivan to be silent, and had immediately shushed him, but Ivan knew that it had meant something else entirely: _listen but don't speak_.

He's never forgotten that song, and sometimes finds himself humming it while alone and working. The song of the large wardstones is slow and solemn, all at once giving a feeling of safety and surety.

These giant structures though, tend to take so much power and energy to run, to blanket the entire city in a shield of thin protection, that they often go offline, one or more running out of energy and breaking the completed circle and creating a gaping hole in the Sanctuary's security. Magic-conjurers are employed to constantly replenish the energy of the stones, but sometimes the stones will just unexpectedly stop emitting their protective waves. Nowadays, the stones can't effectively absorb the given energy, taking less and less in until it's entirely useless or constantly shutting down and exposing the city and all its inhabitants to the monsters beyond the white-washed stone walls of their haven.

As Ivan passes by a dark alleyway, feet mashing into the slick snow and slowing him down, he hears the tell-tale growling of a fae-monster, and the clacking of clawed paws. From the alley emerges a Dip, breath visible in the frigid air as it limps forward and bears its long, jagged fangs at him, blending into the darkness of the twilight with its black fur. Its muzzle is already saturated in a haze of blood, its hapless victim no doubt still lingering as a cold, bloodless carcass in the alleyway; a free meal for the carnivorous crows that flock after the fae like moths to flames.

He turns heel and runs in the opposite direction, away from the blood-sucker, darting into a different alley he hopes will lead to another street. Slow creatures as they were, their one lame leg impeding them, Dips always locked onto one target and relentlessly pursued it.

Just as Ivan hopes, the alley breaks open onto another road. With a sigh of ragged relief he keeps moving forward, breathing labored and legs aching. Things still don't look too familiar, but he's sure he's seen that sign-board before from his earlier trip on the bus.

He continues on for a couple minutes, unmolested and anxious before he's stopped by a pile of bodies strewn about the street, suitcases flung away and business casual apparel torn to shreds at chest-level. But among the bodies is a chaotic whirlwind of feathers and blueblood, trailing over to the prone forms of two Harpies, breasts bared and feathered, humanoid bodies broken upon the pavement. He can discern that while one holds a broken neck, the other is still twitching, alive, with either a snapped spine or an injury to the head harsh enough to render it effectively useless.

A distant crying and whimpering peppers the air, that draws his attention, and his footsteps, over to yet another alley. A flickering light over the back door of some shop gives enough detail to allow him to see the figure of a young man, blond-haired and shouting insult after insult to a third Harpy; the young man is standing defensively over a bleeding, shivering group of office-workers, a child, and an old couple he's sure he saw running a street-vending unit on his earlier bus-trip.

The harpy lashes out with a taloned leg, swiping at the young man before her with a croaking hiss. Amazingly enough, the claws pass easily through the defender. The group behind him cries out, but the boy before them doesn't fall, and instead steps closer, jeering at the bird-woman before drawing back for a punch.

The Harpy, though it was momentarily confused by its prey's seeming inability to be touched, rallies itself with a devilish smirk. Ivan winces and almost considers running once more as the harpy flips over the teen's fist with a flourish of feathers before practically smashing its head through the other's back. The stranger freezes, his visage flickering as the harpy begins to take in deep, drawling sucks, the sound a mind-numbing _schlock_-_schluck_-_schluuuk_.

All Ivan can think about is dusty, cold fingers, pressing into his chest and touching touching _taking_, a little girl's scream a far-off siren in the distance, teeth-achingly and heart-poundingly distant, a wish that he was _home_. The boy before him is fading, body transparent until he almost can't be seen in the gloom, and oh he's blurring, edges slipping away—

Ivan slams into the side of the harpy before he can really understand what's happening. The young man, once free from the harpy's jaws, staggers forward with a gasp. He's still barely visible, form trembling as what looks like a silver mist slithers up from his back.

"Ah…ah…," he stutters out, hands coming to grip his head, "Ah…is this…I can't…not here, not here—!"

The harpy is already staggering up, wings that act like useless stumps on the ground shifting its position slowly. It hisses and spits and trembles; obviously it had taken a bit of a beating before, from the same person who had taken down the others, most probably.

Ivan startles from his stupor as a hand, light and vaguely tingling, clasps his shoulder in a grip that's as weak as a kitten's. The teen has him, leaning close and growing fainter; that silvery mist steadily rising from his form, Ivan realizes, is actually a million points of light, fluttering upwards into the sky like tiny, errant stars, leaving gaps in the young man's skin like a cracked, broken shell.

"Bind with me, form a covenant," the other yelps, eyes wild and such a pretty, effervescent blue.

"W-what," Ivan barely gets out. In his distraction, the harpy rights itself and lunges, and before Ivan can really understand what's happening his stomach is sliced to ribbons and his scarf is acting as a flimsy barrier between the screeching woman's head attempting to rip his throat out and his vulnerable Adam's apple. Ivan's mind is clicking, screaming at him to do something, but his limbs fall once again useless (just like _before_, not again _not again_) at his sides, pain smothering him and staining his mouth a sticky, lovely red.

"No!" he hears, before the creature is shoved away again, rolling about in the grime of the alley with furious bluster as it's once again denied. The teen is there, filling his darkening vision and shouting at him, yelling at him to form some 'covenant,' to not leave him to fade away, because he can't he can't he can't—!

_I'm dying._

Ivan is looking, but not really _seeing_.

_I'm going to die, in this place that I hate, among these people that, under any other circumstance, I wouldn't care existed at all…_

He feels himself lifting up, spiraling out, like reaching, grasping fingers in the dark.

_Death…_

_Try living; it's much more difficult._

He is cold and empty and alone, the hunger burning deep within him a fire hot and quick and agitatingly peculiar. There is nothing, and yet—

_I said that I wouldn't mind dying, but—_

—teeth-achingly and heart-poundingly—

_But I…_

He wants to go home. He wants Katyusha and Natalia. He wants to dream of vibrant green fields and watch people as they stagger through the snow outside like stiff, mechanized dolls. He wants to trace his fingers over the cracked paint and dust and unpack that last, infernal box. He wants, more than anything, he wants—!

_I want to live._

Clarity.

There's a hand in his chest, filling up the emptiness and holding onto something that has been, and always will be, _his_ and oh he wants to live wants to live _please save me to see the world of tomorrow_—!

It's not a snap so much as a lock's tumblers sliding away, a puzzle's rigid, defined lines blurring to create a perfect picture, _clarity_.

And suddenly he's no longer empty and alone.

_I want to live._

_So I will destroy the gods._

**o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o**

_**Yes.**_

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

_**Notes**_**:**

**Dip**: a figure from Catalan myth. It's a black, hairy dog that acts as an emissary of the Devil and sucks the blood of its victims. Vampire doggie! :D It's lame in one leg, like many demonic creatures featuring in Catalonian myth. In this story, it merely acts as an animal of prey, and not an emissary.

**Harpy**: from Greek mythology. Spirits primarily known for snatching food from Phineas. There is much confusion as to what harpies look like. Originally, they were depicted as beautiful women with wings, acting as wind-spirits. But in Jason and the Argonauts, they were described as nasty, fowl-tempered bird-women, who were ugly; women's heads on birds' bodies, that snatch objects or people. In this story, more will be disclosed about the properties of harpies, but as far as this chapter is concerned, their image is melded together, with the harpy having the head and torso of a beautiful woman and the arms, legs, and pelvis of a bird. As for what she was doing to that 'mysterious teenager'…

**The number of Harpies**: originally, there were only 2 harpies. But, Jason and the Argonauts once again changed this to make it 3 Harpies, each describing the destructive qualities of wind. Wikipedia says: Aello ("storm swift"), Celaeno ("the dark") — also known as Podarge ("fleet-foot") — and Ocypete ("the swift wing"). I went with 3, because it's such an impressive number, no?

**Blueblood**: no, I don't mean royalty. XD More will be explained on the properties of blueblood later. But, just know for now that it is the color and name given to the fae in this story, as most of them bleed a variety of blue hues.

* * *

><p><em>That should do it. I'm sorry if this confused you greatly! This story is intended to be an epic-length feature, and as such, I wanted to start slow. I know that most fanfiction is about instant gratification of knowledge, but I wanted to try and set a slower pace…Things will hopefully become clearer in the next chapter.<em>

_I'm sorry if Ivan is OC, but he's difficult to write as the clueless protagonist. I wanted to sorta maybe go for an Ivan-the-Fool vibe, or at least try for the unreliable-narrator angle. Also sorry for the cruddy writing. I'm rusty as hell._

_If I find that people are okay with me writing the rest of this story, I'll continue to write and post chapters. If not, I shall remove them from this site. I have chapter 2 written and ready. If this chapter receives 3 reviews, I'll post the second chapter immediately. If not, once I finish writing chapter 3 for my LJ account, I'll post chapter 2 here about 1 week after I post chapter 3 on livejournal. _


	2. waking

**Title**: REVENANT

**Author**: The DayDreaming

**Warnings**: AU, slight OOC-ness in the beginning, mass amounts of Arthur in this chapter.

**Summary**: _"So I will destroy the gods."_ Everything changed when Ivan began his new life alone in an unfamiliar city. When the Fae strike and a contract is formed with the apparitional anomaly Alfred, he finds himself with the power to change the world and, just possibly, the chance to save it.

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

**Second END: waking**

**-o—o-**

"_So, this is the one."_

"_Yes."_

"_I see."_

"_He did quite the number here, huh? Completely vaporized the place…"_

"_No, not so much vaporized as moved. Even then, it was really only collateral damage from moving the little bitch-bird."_

"_Yeah, but still…guess it's obvious that displacement isn't going to be his forte…"_

"_No. But since he was strong enough to do this without any prior knowledge…"_

"_It's fucking terrifying. Imagine what would've happened if he'd tried to feel things out on his own."_

"_Impossible. That _thing_ is what made it possible. Otherwise, he probably would have just died in his sleep whenever the urge became strong enough."_

"_The kid?"_

"_Whatever it is. It's not normal, not by a long shot. Not a child, not a man. It's just _there_."_

"_You make it sound like a spooky ghost story, y'know."_

"_Isn't that what this is?"_

"_Pfft. Maybe. Either way, the kid…the ah, thing?"_

"_Yes?"_

"_How'd he do it?"_

"_He acted like a missing link. Probably didn't know it. It either released upon the world an angel or a devil. But it was desperate, from what I can tell. There will be a lot of blame flying around, and a lot of accusations…"_

"_Should we wipe it from him?"_

"_No. It might damage the rest of the package. From what I can tell, it's a particularly weak and useless creature. It's burrowed inside him right now, taking a fucking nap while we stand around out here jabbering like a couple of ninnies."_

"_Is that uptight asshole-speak for move the guy?"_

"_I will have you know—!"_

"_Yeah, yeah, whatever. Gods, this guy is like a fucking _bear_…"_

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

The world comes to him slowly, in muted pastels and watery light. There's a pulsing in his temples that isn't quite a headache yet, but persistent enough that it will be soon, and a definitive soreness in his abdomen. His mouth feels sticky; damp cotton with an old, stale aftertaste.

The air settles like a dusty shroud against his skin, flowing in a way that makes him reminisce of muted tissue, too thick to really be palatable for any human inhabitant. He knows this taste, this syrupy scent of old things getting older.

Ivan is in his bed, in his room on the second floor, in his old, crumbly white house, in the middle of Vagary Street, on the far end of a city he doesn't know.

He sits and feels a tugging in his stomach, stiff and resistant. He looks around, noting the finite details of his room; the pile of familiar clothes on the floor, one of his hideous salmon-pink lampshades left askew, a short, straight trail of clean wood wedged between an otherwise dusty expanse of nightstand, like someone had swiped the grime from the surface as if to see if it was really so thick.

The question of why he is here, staring dazedly at his faded wallpaper, flutters at the edges of his attention until the door to the silent room creaks open on rusty hinges. He startles and cranes his head to the side, another ache making itself known as his neck pulls with an abnormal resistance. A blond head is peaking through, slightly luminous green eyes staring at him—through him—before a pair of voluminous eyebrows hunch over the orbs in a grimace.

"Awake, I see," the intruder says blandly, words holding a peculiar lilt to them, an accent thicker than he's ever heard before. Accents and language peculiarities vary only slightly among the Sanctuaries, at least from what he's heard. Living so closely together, culture and society melded together as people became more and more mixed over the years. He's heard of some gatherings of like-minded people, attempting to revive old cultures; they're often shunned from regular society, acting as somewhat of a boulder in an otherwise streamlined, faceless global community.

The door shifts open a bit more, allowing the stiff-shouldered blond man entry, straightening the thick wool of his sweater vest and trying to straighten his shirt cuffs. The clothing-style is outdated, he notices; while most people would prefer wearing smooth, form-fitting clothes of muted colors and neon-bright accessories, the man instead totes a pristine argyle-pattern in shades of green and a silk tie (where in the world could this man have possibly afforded to get silk?).

"Done giving me the evil eye?" the intruder states, sniffing primly and shaking his hand off from where it once rested against a dusty dresser. Ivan blinks. Evil eye? He'd merely been staring in curiosity. Despite his apparent disdain, the man continues forward, stepping over to Ivan's bedside in three quick strides, short, wiry form elegant in its movements. He stares into Ivan's eyes for a couple seconds, attempting to perhaps intimidate him, though he blinks and averts his gaze after a short while, shifting uncomfortably.

"Ivan Braginsky," he starts, pulling out an aged cyberboard, a handheld computer assistant that had come out some years ago and had since been outclassed by faster, sleeker models. "Male. Age twenty-four. Height is one hundred and eighty-two centimeters. Born in the Snegurochka Prefecture, recently relocated. Eye color, purple. Hair, platinum. Skin, fair," he scrolls down with his finger a bit, "College graduate, degree in agriculture…but current occupation is still a student? I suppose it's a pity, really. Two siblings, each located in a different prefecture. Personal history, personal history, blah blah blah—"

Ivan honestly wonders if he should be maybe fishing around for a blunt object of some sort while his uninvited guest is distracted.

"Ah! Here we go. MP is eighty-seven percent. Quite remarkable it's only showing now…you are an enigma, aren't you, Mr. Braginsky?" the stranger smirks and flips his cyberboard over, revealing the device's opened page. He can feel his eyes widen as he takes in the written record of every area of his life, down to the last time he's gone out to buy toothpaste. The text glares at him, black and angry on the shivering screen. At the bottom, highlighted in bright red, is 'MP: 87%.'

Even further below that is the single phrase: **Keep a Close Watch.**

Ivan clenches his fists, rumpling his bed sheets. His teeth ache as he grits them, before taking a deep breath through his nose and letting his tense posture ease into a lax slump. He smiles and gives out a deep chuckle, before grabbing the board from the stranger's hands and holding it up to his face, as if examining—

The booming crack of shattered plastic and plasma screen spears through the room like sudden, voracious thunder; Ivan hands the mangled pieces back to their owner with a languid smile and another chuckle.

"Why are you here?" he settles on asking, though a thousand thoughts buzz in his mind; vicious, angry hornets that wish to hurt and maim and kill—"What is the meaning of all of this?"

The blond man gapes at him, mouth hanging open like a gasping fish; his hands feebly attempt to fit the two halves of the board back together, clink-clink-clinking until a shard of plastic splinters and falls atop his expensive leather loafers. Slowly, the man pulls his hands apart and allows them to rest at his sides, pieces dangling loosely in his grasp.

Ivan loses patience, mind snapping and roiling in a heavy sea of—not panic but—fear?—something he can't describe. He shoots up from his bed, grabbing at the other man's neck and managing to clasp the other's lapels as he attempts to scamper away.

"What. Are. You. Doing. _Here_?"

The man stares up at him, all pretenses of pomp and grandeur lost when dwarfed in the shadow of this considerably taller giant before him. He stutters out a feeble 'Y-y-you—' before he catches sight of his assaulter placing his arm over his abdomen. He smirks.

Without warning, he slips his left hand between the protective forearm and Ivan's stomach, fingers pressing into the thin material of his nightshirt. Ivan freezes, feeling how the fingers warm and begin to swelter, building to dully burn against his skin. Something clicks.

"Conjurer," he mutters, releasing the man's lapels. He steps back, cold, bare feet raising dust motes in their wake. He's stepped off his usual path.

"So you're not entirely a simpleton hick from that backwater prefecture; good," the stranger lifts his left hand, allowing Ivan to see the reddened digits emitting a definitive heat wave that distorts the picture frame behind him, the smiling faces of his sisters and he blurring in and out. From the heat slowly emerges a visible flame, bright green, which hovers dutifully over the man's fingers. "Yes. I am a 'conjurer' as you so blithely say."

The man steps back with a widening smirk, snapping his fingers closed and dissipating the small fireball in a blink, "Let's try again. I've realized my egregious error. I've not properly introduced myself to you, as any good gentlemen would. Allow me to remedy the situation.

"My name is Arthur Kirkland," the man bows slightly, putting his once flaming hand over his heart before extending it towards Ivan. Ivan stares at the appendage with disdain and continues to glare at the intruder. Arthur retracts his offer slowly, smile never leaving his face, though his eyes narrow a fraction in contempt. He continues, "I am a conjurer, as you have said. I won't reveal my specific nature as of now, for that is something that should only be seen on the battlefield. But I suppose you might have already gotten an idea."

Ivan wishes he could punch the smile off of Arthur Kirkland's face, or at least give those obnoxious eyebrows a good tug and see how attached they are to his snide forehead. He _wishes_ there was something he could do, but to go up against a magic-conjurer bare-handed, with no protective armor or anything? And against one who apparently specializes in combat? Suicide. Ivan bites back his urges.

"I saw that nasty little glare you sent me," Arthur chuckles, allowing his fingers to undulate by his pants-pocket slowly. "Fine. To the point then. Tell me; do you have any idea what 'MP' stands for?"

In all honesty, no. He's never heard of it before. The copies he has of his birth certificate and family history make no mention of such a strange listing.

"No, of course not," Arthur proceeds without much hesitation. "It's not a piece of information that's available to the public. MP is a measure that's gauged at birth. How high it is correlates to how much interest the government shows in you. I suppose you were passed over, mainly because that out-of-date Sanctuary you'd been living in never bothered to establish any sort of beneficial standards for cases such as yours. It was their downfall, really." Arthur gives another small chuckle at this.

"But that aside, MP stands for 'magic potential," he halts his exposition to allow his words to sink in.

And they do. Ivan feels his insides freeze as he pieces things together. Eighty-seven percent. Keep a close watch. A conjurer in his house. But that can't be.

Nothing but lies.

Ivan relaxes and smiles.

"Sorry, my friend. You must have made some grave error. Perhaps you mean some other Ivan Braginsky," —even if all the measurements and colors are the same—"There's no way I could be capable. This is merely a foolish lie, some prank you people must like to tell to poor foreigners like me."

"You're in denial now, Mr. Braginsky? I had thought you were better than this," Arthur chides, smirking as he slips his hand in his pocket. "Sorry to condemn you to perhaps a lifetime full of misery, but it's not my job to care. You mustn't close your eyes and pray that the truth will just wander off. These are not the times to be acting so childish."

"I think it would be best if you leave now, Mr. Kirkland."

"And I think it would be best if you listen," Arthur punctuates this with a sneer before the room begins to grow stiflingly warm, the same, shimmering heat waves from before enveloping the entirety of his body. Ivan can smell as the wooden boards beneath the other's feet begin to blacken and lightly smoke.

"Contrary to what you might think, you can't run away _Ivan Braginsky_. There is no place in this world for you. You'd be a fool to think me a liar and just block out the truth. You are a conjurer, down to your inky black core. Nothing but a dog now in the eyes of the public. Know your place!"

And before Arthur can really understand what's happening, he's laying prone on the floor, eye purpling into a mottled plum flower. Ivan's fist stings where it's made contact with the other's face, blisters popping up in succession along his knuckles. He tries to rein in his breathing and feels around for his sister's precious scarf, only to find it isn't there. He looks around the room, wild-eyed, and finally spots the pile of clothes from earlier, a stack that hadn't been there when he left the house. Trailing out from the side is a lonely tail, and Ivan walks as briskly over to it as he can with his stomach still feeling somewhat painful twinges that he can't for the life of him remember how he'd obtained. He doesn't miss the opportunity to kick Arthur out of the way.

He ruffles through the clothes, noticing with disturbing clarity the muddy brown of dried blood in what he thinks is the shirt he was wearing before, along with his trousers and—

His coat.

There are gaping holes in all of them, like someone had gouged out the midsection of his clothes and left him to bleed out…

And when he lifts his coat, he sees something so much more devastating.

His sister's precious scarf, given to him so long ago on the day of his parents' funeral—ripped and torn, but most worryingly, only holding itself together by a mere thread at the middle. He lifts it to his chest, staring unblinkingly, lost.

A tiny clatter interrupts the almost palpable silence. He looks down and sees what appears to be a sharp, glittering fang resting neatly on the floor.

Arthur chuckles lightly behind him.

"Just what exactly do you think happened that night?" the words come out gentle and sly, before he hisses and attempts to stand. He tsks when he feels his eye swelling shut, and the small trace of blood on his fingertips causes a frown to grace his angular face. "So quick to anger. They'll have problems with you. Hee, you'll never survive like this, all hot temper and childish naïveté."

Ivan can hear the words distantly, like a voice whispering gently in his ears, almost drowned out by the howls of a blizzard. He takes pause at one particular phrase, though, "…that night?"

"Ah, so you don't remember after all. I guess that's the thing with magic…it does some loopy things with memories if one isn't…careful, shall we say?" and before Ivan can protest further to being associated with the likes of conjurers, Arthur plows ahead, "That night, a small outbreak within the city boundaries occurred. You seem to have been caught up in it, far from home and without any sort of protective device on your person.

"…and yet…you survived," Arthur's back to smirking. "In particular, you encountered three harpies. I'm not sure how you did it, but you managed to take out two of the little bitch-birds before the third got you."

Something stirs in Ivan's mind at this, something foreign and strange; a little voice whispers words that he can't quite understand, but knows he should.

"But you're still here, once again. How did you survive? That harpy practically cut out your entire abdominal cavity, and attempted to go for your neck, too. This little tooth,"—and here, Arthur kneels down beside Ivan and lifts the clear, crystalline fang to Ivan's face—"is merely an incisor for that little harpy. Her canines are a flattering seven centimeters fully extended, give or take."

He gives the tooth a small sniff before placing it in the front pocket of Ivan's nightshirt, "You'll want to keep that. Never know when a magical artifact like a fang will come in handy. I can't sense any contaminants, so I won't confiscate it.

"But back to the problem. You're being rent apart by our harpy friend, with no sign of salvation when, what should show up but a deus ex machina! It seems that a spirit was also present. From what we can tell, it's weak and insignificant. But it managed to do something smart by wanting to form a covenant with you."

"Covenant…?" Ivan murmurs, entranced. His mind is racing, trying to remember, but all he can picture are smears of color and bright, blue eyes.

"Yes. A magical contract, in this case bonding two beings together in a symbiotic relationship. It's up to you on whether or not it can be mutually beneficial. You couldn't exactly say no to it when you were so busy being eaten alive. Your mind was probably screaming to live, and so when the offer for salvation was made, you unconsciously accepted the covenant.

"From there, we can only assume that contact with that spirit unlocked your magic potential and fully submerged you in the other side. By attaching itself to your soul, it created an opening by which your magic could escape. It's safe to assume that it's still open, and will remain so. Quite a lucky break, no?

"From there, you reacted on instinct. Our analysis confirms that you used a rather crude displacement spell to remove the harpy from the premises, and took a good chunk of the alley along with it."

"If that's true…if I was really torn apart by this harpy, then how…?" Ivan asks, trying to find every flaw in the story. His memories are murky, nothing but a mixture of blurred lines and panicked feelings. But there's proof in everything that the other man says, from the bloody and torn clothes, the pain in his stomach and neck, the tooth.

"How are you alive and well? Another sign that you're a conjurer. A crude healing spell took care of it while you were also performing that clumsy displacement spell. Crude, but potent. It's rather impressive you managed to do both…You'll have some scarring, but otherwise will be fine, if not a bit uncomfortable for a few days," Arthur eyes Ivan's stomach, and then allows his piercing gaze to trail up to his neck.

"This…this isn't possible," Ivan mutters, clenching the scarf in his arms harder. An audible rip pulls his attention, and he realizes that he's managed to pull apart the last few threads holding the scarf together. Something burns at the back of his eyes.

"I'm afraid it is," as Arthur says this, his right hand moves over his swollen eye, a glittering trail flowing behind the limb before it sinks into the man's bruised skin, turning once-blackened flesh to a healthy pink. "This world is full of disappointments, you'll come to find. You're just another one."

Despite his words, the intruder kneels next to Ivan once more, pulling from his pants-pocket a card, perfectly rectangular and pristine. Marked on the card is the phrase 'at the Gathering Tree, 9-11:30 pm.' He places it in the same pocket as the tooth, right next to Ivan's beating heart. He can feel it throbbing underneath his fingertips, and wonders if his has ever beaten so loudly. He can scarcely remember.

"It's not all so terrible, you know," Arthur tries to dredge up his sympathy, whatever tiny spark that may be left. "We are not completely hopeless."

Ivan is silent for a minute, before he gives a chilling smile, "You're right. You're not."

Arthur frowns, "Oh, come off it! Accept tha—"

"No!" Ivan snarls, shoving the other man off his feet and sending him skidding across the floor. The upheaval of dust is so great that the other's prone form is almost obscured. "I will not be lead on by this ridiculousness. Leave now!"

Arthur scoffs before pulling himself up and dusting off his rumpled vest. He sneers down at the man on the floor, looking so pathetically worn and alone, "Fine. Live in denial. You'll come to regret it. Once you're awake, you can't go back to sleep. You've fallen into waking dreams, Mr. Braginsky, and unfortunately for you, they're more like waking nightmares. Know that we'll always be watching you, and if you make just one wrong move…well, you understand why some people disappear, and perhaps where to."

Ivan says nothing, glaring at the man. With a final huff, Arthur begins to leave, the thump of his heels almost thunderous in the tenuous silence.

He pauses at the doorway though, mouth working quietly before he turns slightly, eyes unreadable. They glow with some internal spark, an ember in the darkness.

"Learn to fear your dreams. You'll come to find that in dreams, no one is there to save you, or hear you scream. They are ever so much more real to you and I than to those not touched by the other side.

"You are alone now. Reach out to others before it's too late."

And then he's gone.

And perhaps the strangest thing is—

Ivan swallows, tongue dry and filled with cotton. His chest burns. His neck aches.

He allows the scarf to fall.

As the dust settles, he is completely and utterly—

Alone.

**o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o**

**It's funny.**

**Is this what it feels like—?**

**To be alive?**

**Because somehow, all I can think is that before this moment, I've been sleeping like the dead.**

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

_**Notes**_**:**

**Cyberboard**: though I haven't addressed it specifically yet (and trust me, I will, as it's sort of a major plot point), this story does take place in the future. Not very far. There aren't any jetpacks or hovercars or anything. Think of this thing as like a sophisticated iPad or something. I'm not a techno-wiz myself, but holographic computer screens are damn sexy. I'm very tempted~ Anyways, just note that no significant technological changes have taken place.

**Snegurochka Prefecture**: no specific names will be stated yet, but the Sanctuaries do have sorta 'areas of domain,' hence why they're called prefectures. They'll all be named after famous fairytale characters. Snegurochka in particular is from a Russian fairytale, about a girl made from snow, a snow maiden, or 'Snegurochka.' I chose this because, like the end of the fairytale, the Snegurochka Prefecture disappears, or is, well, abandoned.

* * *

><p>Well, here we are. This story has received 3 reviews, so I'm posting the second chapter. The third is still in the works, and will be posted here a week after I've posted it on my livejournal account. Just as something to look at, this story has had over 60 hits, and several people have set it on alert. But for a long time, there were no reviews. I'd really recommend to you guys that, if there's a chapter waiting to be posted until a review number is met, I'd actually sorta take 3 seconds to review. I don't mean to sound needy, but it was just something to point out, because I almost completely forgot that I needed to post this chapter. Maybe I should ahve held off, though...I've never had a chapter buffer before! But a promise is a promise.<p>

Anyway, exposition chapter! Though normally I find Arthur a pain to write, in this chapter he was surprisingly fun. Heeheehee. Sadistic? Yes. But we do find out that he maybe isn't as much of a douche as he first appears to be. Already there were hints of that towards the end.

We all remember in the first chapter that it was a _bad_ thing to be known as a magic-conjurer. Now that Ivan has been condemned, what will he do? Well, I'm pretty sure we've all figured it out by now. But, just where exactly has that mysterious boy from before gone?


	3. the lamb that became a wolf

**Title**: REVENANT

**Author**: Eram_Quod_Es

**Warnings**: AU, slight OOC-ness in the beginning, language, probably confusing content, an almost unacceptable lack of Alfred in this chapter

**Summary**: _"So I will destroy the gods."_ Everything changed when Ivan began his new life alone in an unfamiliar city. When the Fae strike and a contract is formed with the apparitional anomaly Alfred, he finds himself with the power to change the world and, just possibly, the chance to save it.

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

**Third END: the lamb that became a wolf**

**-o—o-**

Ivan spends the rest of the day searching for a sewing kit and then contemplating the dangers of setting foot outside his house when he realizes that Katyusha has taken it with her to the Selkie Prefecture. There is still the very real danger that the wardstones might fail; it wasn't unheard of for the stones to deactivate multiple times within a week while trying to return to stable levels.

But even as he thinks of just returning to bed to sleep away the awkward twinges of pain in his abdomen, he feels the familiar pangs of hunger. Checking the old, stuttering refrigerator, he sees that the food that he had only just bought the day before has browned and spoiled; the pungent odor filling his nostrils causes him to stumble back. He clutches his nose and stares once more into the illuminated interior, watching the sticky drippings of a ruined peach as it soaks into the bottom of a sweating carton of old, curdled milk.

What has happened, he asks to himself. He swerves around and checks the screen embedded into the adjacent wall, tapping buttons on the digital home organizer to pull up the calendar. It reads February 12th, almost three weeks since he'd last checked the date.

"What…why is it…?" he mutters disbelievingly. Three weeks have passed since that fateful venture to the School. He scours his mind for any other indications that he's slept for over a fortnight. As he thinks of it, Arthur kept saying 'that night,' not making any indications as to when it happened. He peers at his counters and finds the dust layer slightly thicker than before.

He takes a shuddering breath before stepping over to the kitchen window and drawing the dusty curtains away, a watery ray of sun falling through. Outside, the banks of snow that once lined the streets has become a muddy slush thin enough to see brown tufts of grass peeking up. Winter has moved on without him.

Ivan chews his bottom lip in agitation before grabbing a bucket and a pair of rubber gloves to begin hurriedly shoving as much of the rotten food into the receptacle as possible. As he carries the biodegradable muck to the compost heap out back, he tries to wrap his head around the situation. His heart clenches.

This isn't happening to him. Not to Ivan Braginsky, the son of two simple farmers from an isolated prefecture. This is all some terrible dream. He's slipped and fallen on some ice patch in the middle of the city, hallucinating.

The old house, the torn clothes, the pain, and especially Arthur Kirkland and his mad words are all part of some delusion, some waking dream he'll awaken from in a hospital room, no worse for wear except a few stitches.

He pinches himself, then kicks the wall of his shed, letting loose a small avalanche of slush that covers his head.

He shakes off the drizzling ice and almost sobs.

He'll wake up soon. Even if everything he does hurts, everything he touches feels real—

This is a dream.

He'll wake up soon.

**o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o**

The true strangeness begins as he's checking out from the grocery store.

The cashier is packing his new groceries into the large, cloth sack that most shoppers carry around. Should they forget to bring something to carry the bulk of their purchases in, it costs extra credits to purchase bags from the store.

As the teenager sets down the bread and turns to tell him his total, Ivan readily shoves his ID card into the other's hand. He could have gone with a bracelet or band, just like the modern fashions dictated, but the assurance of a scan card over a piece of plastic that can easily break should he hit something too hard was too much to pass up.

The girl slashes the card and stares at the screen, waiting for the transaction to process. Ivan stares at the loose curl of her ponytail, easily seeing her face morph from apathetically bored to startled in under a second. She gasps and swiftly turns her eyes to him, a pretty blue color just like—

Just like…he can't remember.

The cashier quickly shoves the card back into his outstretched hand, eyes and mouth trembling.

"What is the problem?" he asks, glancing at his card before pocketing it in his woolen jacket. He feels naked without the old, heavy coat; but how could he possibly wear it with that gigantic, bloodied hole?

She swallows thickly before shaking her head, "N-no problem, sir. Just, uh...just please sign!" She whips the display around so he can sign with the attached stylus. He grabs the plastic pen, readying to sign, when his eye catches the sidebar of information displaying his picture and basic info. A pulsing gold symbol of what looks like a filled circle, a crescent moon resting its greater curve along the top, pulses idly on the screen next to his ID code.

He has never seen this sign before. Its presence strikes something in him, a hard ball in his stomach that feels like anger and despair clinging to each other.

"S-sir…?" he smiles. He signs his name, and then neatly places the stylus back into its holster. He glances at the girl, smiles wider, and chuckles.

"Are you sure there isn't a problem?"

He turns the screen around, and she shakes her head, "Good. That's good to know."

Even as he takes the heavy bag of groceries, he smiles. And even as he leaves the store. And even as he returns home.

**o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o**

**I am dreaming**

**I am dreaming**

**I am dreaming**

**I am dreaming I am dreaming I am I am I am—**

**o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o**

It only gets worse, of course.

In the days following the incident at the grocery store, he begins writing applications for temporary jobs, things to hold him over until he finishes school. He's not in danger of running out of savings, but he hates relying on the inheritance of his parents.

He accesses the online job bank and searches for jobs that he can easily do alongside his schooling, painstakingly fills in the applications, and creates video interviews for the AI questionnaire. Usually it would take a couple days to hear back, but within the hour he receives letters giving their condolences and apologies about not being able to accept him as a worker.

He makes a request asking why, but receives no immediate reply. He waits for a few days, checking his messages every couple of hours, until he finally grits his teeth and phones the stores and services he's applied to. Each time he phones a place, after speaking his name to the electronic call screener, he is immediately disconnected.

On his last call, he manages to catch a human call answerer. He requests to see the manager about an interviewer, saying that he's already sent out an application. The woman on the video screen smiles at him and doesn't even bother to check before patching him to the manager of a small gardening store a couple blocks from his house. The manager greets him easily enough, but immediately scowls upon hearing Ivan's complaint of not receiving a reason as to why he was rejected from his application.

He pulls up the files and Ivan can visibly see his face purple in a silent rage. Before he can quite adjust to the manager's abrupt color change, the middle-aged man is spitting at the screen, "YOU! YOU'RE THAT PUNK!"

Ivan refrains from rubbing his ears; even if the speaker rests a foot away from him, the sheer volume is enough to make him cringe. He can faintly hear the secretary from before calling to see if the boss is alright.

The manager arrests Ivan with a cold stare before biting out, "We don't accept your kind here. Don't even think of stepping foot within my store. I'll shoot you dead, you fucker."

The video cuts to black, and the end-call tone rings through his ears like a siren like a siren like a siren like a—

He punches redial, and finds himself immediately blocked from the number.

Ivan can feel a buzzing in his head, like angry, vicious hornets.

**o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o**

And in the interim he dreams of terrible things.

Like monsters and shadows and worlds beyond his human eye.

And always they are grasping at him. He feels his body on higher ground, the gravity of a dense star pulling relentlessly at his heels, and inch by grating inch it pulls his haven down.

Closer and closer and closer and closer and—

Then the blue eyes come. They look familiar, and at once he can breathe again because they disperse the darkness and pull forth a sense of calm Ivan is sure he's felt before, but cannot place.

They stare up at him, two simple eyes, as if waiting for him, and though he tries to speak, he cannot find his voice.

He thinks he hears a voice, calling his name…

Closer and closer and closer and—

**o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o**

The final straw comes on a Sunday afternoon, when the sun is milky and the air damp.

A sudden rainfall in the early morning has left the sidewalks sheathed in a heavy layer of ice, and overcast skies constantly drip a small, unpleasant drizzle. February may be warmer, but the nights are cold enough to freeze the rain where it sits in stagnant puddles.

Ivan attempts a stroll to stretch his legs. A stint of bad weather the week before had left him cooped up within his silent house. Even if before he had said he could stand being within that house alone, so long as he didn't have to interact with the outside, now it just feels oppressive. He can always sense something within the home, like shifting shadows and phantasms, though he's never seen any truly positive evidence. His dreams are even worse. He hasn't felt well-rested since he awoke to Arthur Kirkland in his abode.

Ivan is sure he must be going crazy. It's all he can do to force himself to sleep, and when he does manage to sleep, he has such a difficult time waking up it's almost as if he's fallen into a coma. More often than not, he'll find himself falling asleep at nine at night, and only just able to wake up at seven in the evening the next day.

He had attempted to see a doctor and a psychologist, though he was immediately refused to be seen by both upon the verification process of his ID.

He's at his wit's end about what to do. No matter what he tries, whether it be candles and incense, hot baths before bed, meditation and the recitation of positive thoughts, warm milk, any healthful herbs he could think of—it all fails to assuage his tormented mind.

He doesn't realize he's stepping onto an icy patch of pavement in the middle of an intersection, following a crowd of people, before it's too late. Three others fall with him; two girls, and a man that had previously been chattering away on his compaqboard. If Ivan recalls correctly, he had dully noted a couple of other people falling off in the distance, a few minutes before he had physically arrived at the street.

He offers a hand to the man, who is brooding over his cracked board screen, while the two girls pull each other up.

A horn sounds, and Ivan can only watch in a sort of horrified fascination as a car skids through a turn, right in front of where the stalled group is standing. It's like a siren, he thinks, like a siren like a siren like a siren like—

Glass breaking and bones bursting apart. Blood on the street, oh help me I want to live to live to live—!

He blinks at the crushed hood of the car in front of him, the driver screaming as she touches a gash on her forehead from slamming into the steering wheel. His group of once-fallen comrades is silent behind him, staring in awe as he pulls his mangled hand out of the grill.

The pain doesn't register, only the sight of the car and its sleek design, pushing into his form like butter, only to be stopped as though it's hit a brick wall. He wants to scream, but finds his words swallowed in the sudden realization.

The two girls whimper and clutch at each other, while the man with the compaqboard backs away, muttering quickly into the mobile phone about 'the man that had just single-handedly stopped a car.'

In his mind, all Ivan can think is monster. In his heart, all he can feel is hopelessness.

He looks in their eyes and can only see himself, twisted and warped and fading away like a wraith into the night.

And so, he walks. Away from the gathering crowd of onlookers. Away from the wreckage of a scene that should have killed him. And away from a life that tried desperately to cling to 'normalcy.'

He's in front of his neighbor's house before he's pulled from his daze. The call of his next-door neighbor catches him off guard, and he can't help but turn around to face the man whom he had never officially met, though had seen outside on occasion, walking a dog.

The man was short, with light blond hair and gentle violet eyes that held a strangely enticing iridescence. Currently, the man was holding onto the leash of his small white dog, and glancing worriedly at Ivan's hand.

"What happened?" the other asks, reaching for the mottled limb. Ivan allows him to take the appendage, too numb to care much what the other did. He didn't know what to do anymore, where to turn.

Maybe he wanted to savor the kindness of someone before they realized what he actually was.

The man asked something, to which he nodded, though what he'd agreed to he had no clue. The other pulled him inside his house and through a foyer before entering into a kitchen area. He was set down at a small, wooden table and told to wait while the man bustled around, searching in a cabinet for a first aid kit.

The kitchen area was clean and warm, gleaming in the overhead lights. Ivan could only look and think that this is what a home looked like; lived in, unlike his own sterile version.

The man bustled over after a minute and placed a white box on the table, opening it to reveal several packages of bandages and gauze, along with antiseptic. He readied a wet cloth with water and held Ivan's hand, splaying the bloodied fingers, before gently smoothing the towel over the digits.

The towel stains pink, but only pulls away to reveal smooth, pale skin. The other's eyes widen a bit, but continue to work diligently until the entire hand is clean. Ivan can only stare, before retracting his hand and holding it in front of his face.

Nothing is there. No cuts or gashes, scars or bruising. He is sure it had been sliced apart and mangled beyond recognition. But now…

"I figured this would happen," the man says, taking his hand again and smiling. He kneads the appendage, digging in to feel the muscles and bone. Giving it a clean bill of health, he sets it down on the table. "I knew something was bound to go wrong. I worried that it might involve others to a negative extent, but…"

"How do you know that that wasn't someone else's blood?" Ivan breaks in. Ice runs down his spine at the realization that this man is, he—

"Because. Our blood smells different from theirs', y'know. It's a unique scent for everyone. To me, all of our kind smells like mint. I pity one person I know; he says that everyone smells like—!"

"What do you mean?" Ivan cuts in, standing from his chair.

The man smiles and stands as well, looking him square in the eye. Those iridescent, violet hues laugh at him, "I've been watching you Mr. Braginsky. Waiting for you to crack."

The man gives a wistful sigh, "That's the sad thing, I guess. We have to break you before we can make you better, right?

Ivan snarls and attempts to loom over the other, the task easily accomplished as the much shorter man tilts his head back.

"Ah, Arthur said you'd be a little volatile. I don't blame you, though. I think I was the same exact way when I found out! But yes. I was watching over you to make sure you transitioned smoothly. I can't say it has, but at least you're getting there," the man steps out from under Ivan's shadow. "So what will you do now?"

Ivan blinks at the brush-off. This little man is not as easily intimidated as the bushy-brows that came before him. He sighs, and feels all his anger dry up with it. Now all he is, is hollow; a ship adrift without wind or sail.

"I don't know," he finally mumbles, shifting to stare at the bloodied towel. Everything feels too surreal at the moment. Like a dream he can't wake up from. The image of his death replays in his mind, and how, at the very last second, something within him said, 'yes, I want to live.'

"Might I suggest going to the Gathering Tree? It's where Arthur has been waiting for you every night. He'll show you what to do."

He remembers the card that he was given so many weeks ago.

"But where is this Gathering Tree," he decides to ask, mind hesitantly approaching the idea like a spooked cat. What would he be signing his life away to if he came around to Arthur's side…? "I've never heard of it."

"It's a special place in the park, in the middle of the city. Normal people can't see it, but we can. It's pretty…interesting to look at…but it gives off a weird feeling. But, I don't know how to explain…it's like it's calling us. A lot of magic-conjurers are drawn to these trees. They pop up all over the world, from what we can tell. We've got only one in this place, but I hear that in other cities, there can be as many as twelve."

Ivan glances at the clock displayed by the other's home organizer, and sees that it's only just edging into six o' clock, "Will he be there tonight?"

"Yes, of course."

He smirked, "I almost feel like not doing it, just to make him wait there for eternity."

The other laughed, "I take it he didn't make a very good impression?"

"Not by a long shot."

"I see. He can be rather prickly, but he's a good guy…well, when you catch him in a good mood," the man smiles, and then widens his eyes in realization. "Oh! I forgot! I never introduced myself."

He quickly throws his hand out, saying, "My name is Tino Väinämöinen, a pleasure to meet you. Please call me Tino. I already know who you are, Mr. Brginsky."

Ivan hesitantly takes the hand in his own. It is small and warm, and he feels as though he might crush it should he press too hard. He's always had a problem with his hands; always too rough and strong to be delicate with anything. A farmer's life has only scarred and roughened his palms, and he's sure the calluses act like armor against human touch.

But suddenly in this moment, despite all his rebellion and fear, of the future and destiny and everything that's damned him since his parents died and his small family drifted apart, he feels like it might be okay.

He gives the hand a firm squeeze. And maybe he's a bit resentful that the other's one of _them_, but…"It's nice to meet you, Tino. Please, just Ivan is fine."

Arthur's words echo in his mind, _"You are alone now. Reach out to others before it's too late."_

Ivan is deeply, desperately alone. He is a conjurer, through and through…a monster. No one can love a creature like him.

But he must survive somehow. He wants to live.

**o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o**

**I had tried so hard to block out all the noise around me. That cacophony which told me that the reality I did not wish to see **_**must**_** be seen.**

_**You mustn't close your eyes and pray that the truth will just wander off.**_

**Now all I feel is empty and resigned.**

**How do I fight against my very being? **

**I am nothing but a monster now.**

**o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o**

He arrives at the park at nine o' clock sharp, staring around the area in search of the tell-tale blonde hair of one Arthur Kirkland. But there is nothing.

He wanders further in, kicking at the accumulated slush on the ground and feeling out the slick parts of the path to avoid ice. He searches for a tree, any tree, out of the ordinary. The park is sparse, very few trees dotting the spit of land.

He almost gives up when a dark corner catches his eye, dark and shadowed away from the streetlamps that dot the normal pathway. He wanders off and edges into the black of night, blinking to try and adjust. The moon above him is weak, a mere crescent.

He shuffles a bit and then—yes! He feels a tree with the oddest bark he's ever laid his hands on. The sensation is smooth and rough at once, with grubby, bulbous nodules that bulge from what he believes to be a stalk.

A light suddenly flickers on, revealing Arthur in all his regal glory, holding a large lantern with a green flame flickering away inside and effectively chasing the shadows back. The tree, now illuminated, looks like a tall, chalky outcropping of roots from the earth. The stalk shoots out above him, a reminiscent of a stand of seaweed, the thin, stringy branches hovering in the wind like ghosts caught in a phantom current.

"Ugly, isn't it?" Arthur pipes up from the side, standing tall from his leaned-back position on the tree.

Ivan frowns. Yes, it is ugly; but he isn't about to agree with Kirkland over it.

"Oh, come now. Don't be like that, lad. We're going to become the best of friendsies now, aren't we?"

He scowls further and wishes he could wipe the smug smirk from the other's lips.

"I suppose you're just a little bit angry. It's not my fault you couldn't accept things without reality slapping you in the face first. Ah well. There's nothing left to do but go on with our lives now," Arthur's smirk widens.

"How do you plan on going about that, Braginsky? Willing to listen to my little proposal, or well…I should say the School's proposal."

Ivan furrows his brows, "What do you mean by the School? What do they have to do with this?"

"You'll see. All in good time, sir. For now, just follow me," Arthur says, waving the lantern casually and beginning a swift walk from the Gathering Tree.

Ivan starts to follow him, mind trying to reason why the School would be involved, when he feels the inexplicable urge to look back. The Gathering Tree waves at him awkwardly, despite there being no breeze to speak of. The pale branches float and bob, and he finds it almost mesmerizing how easily they dance in the sky. Now that his eyes have adjusted, he sees a faint luminescence in the white silhouette of the tree, even as Arthur's lantern fades away.

He feels the distinct desire to not leave the tree, like a leash on his mind tightening with every step that he takes away from it.

But, no. He shakes his head and hurries to catch up to Arthur. Now is not the time for whimsy over some ugly tree. There is business to attend to.

**o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o**

**It's time to make the sacrificial lambs into demons, isn't it?**

**And demons into gods.**

**-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

_**Notes: **_

**Selkie Prefecture**: Selkie is another mythical creature. It is said to take the form of a seal and a beautiful woman. The seal can take off its skin to transform into a beautiful woman, but cannot return to the sea unless it has its seal skin on. Oftentimes in stories, lonely fishermen will find the skin of a selkie, hide it, and make the woman become his wife. He'll have kids with her, and all the while, the selkie will attempt to find her missing skin.

**The symbol**: I am referring to the horn symbol. It's a circle with a crescent moon on it, which looks a lot like horns. It's a symbol for witchcraft, specifically for males. The gold color also represents masculinity in witchcraft. Females have the moon and the color silver to represent them. See [here] for a sight that has the symbol on its page.

**Digital home organizer, compaqboard, ID bracelets and cards**: you know. All that stuff that seems to be commonplace in the future. Like I said in the previous chapter, this does take place in the future. Not very many technological advances have been made, but things are far enough along and in such a state that it's common for everything to be computerized, even clocks and calendars in central computer outlets in a home. Think of a digital home organizer as like a computer for a house, controlling all sorts of things like temperature, and information files and such, which also acts as a calendar, clock, and phone. Compaqboard is akin to a very computerized smart phone. ID bracelets and such are pretty self-explanatory, being an ID card with all personal info and a credit card all in one.

**The Gathering Tree**: pretty funky, huh? Keep these suckers in mind. They're IMPORTANT.

* * *

><p>You lucky dogs. :) If you consider it a treat to read this story, then here you go. In honor of my birthday being today, the 21st of July, I'm posting this chapter about 2 days earlier than planned. Things are getting down to the wire in real life, so don't expect another update until after August 2nd. As I've said before, I first post chapters on my LJ, and then one week after, I post it here. :)<p>

I'm sorry it's uninteresting right now. Hopefully it'll pick up soon for you guys. If you're confused, feel free to ask questions, and I'll answer so long as it doesn't spoil too much of the story. Also, sorry Alfred wasn't too much in this chapter, though it should be fairly obvious where he was. He'll show up properly next time! ...maybe.


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